Poem to Poem

Poem to Poem

The last question on the paper compares two unseen poems. It is worth 8 marks, and it is where answers most often collapse into "poem A, then poem B": two summaries side by side. • You compare the poems' methods, on a focus the question gives you. • Only AO1 and AO2 count here. There are no marks for context at all, which makes this the one question where knowing about the poet is worth nothing. • Eight marks is roughly ten minutes. Two or three real comparison points beat five thin ones. The method is always the same: find what the poems share, then show how the effect differs.

Two poems, one storm

Two short poems written for this module, both about a storm at night. Read them together rather than one after the other: comparison starts here, not later.

Open the door

This is Poem X in full. Tap the line in which the speaker WELCOMES the storm rather than describing it.

• The storm came dancing off the hills tonight,
• all drum and cymbal, showing off its light.
• The windows shook like children at a fair.
• I threw the back door wide and drank the air.

Shut it out

This is Poem Y in full. Tap the line in which the speakers try to KEEP the wind outside.

• The wind has found the gaps we never sealed.
• It fingers every latch; it will not rest.
• The house holds its breath. We count the panes
• and hope the dark outside stays dark, and out.

Common ground first

Here is the move that turns two summaries into a comparison, and it works on any pair of poems you are ever given. Do not start from the difference. Start from something the poems share: a method, an image, a situation, a kind of speaker. Once you have named the shared thing, the difference writes itself, because you now have one axis to measure both poems against. Answers that start from the difference tend to end up describing each poem in turn, because there is nothing holding the two halves of the sentence together. Answers that start from common ground cannot do that, which is why examiners can spot the method from the first line of a paragraph.

Shared ground

Look back at the two poems. Pick the TWO things that BOTH of them do.

• Give the storm or wind human actions, as though it were alive
• Set the storm against the house the speaker is inside
• Present the storm as purely terrifying
• Use a distant third-person narrator

Same method, opposite feeling

Both poems personify the storm. What is the key DIFFERENCE in the effect?

• Poem X welcomes the storm with delight, whereas Poem Y treats it as a threat to be shut out
• There is no real difference: both poems find the storm frightening
• Poem X is much longer than Poem Y
• Poem X is about weather and Poem Y is about a house

Build the sentence

Both poets _____ the storm, giving it human actions. But where Poem X's speaker throws the back door _____ to drink the air, Poem Y's house holds its _____ and hopes the dark stays outside. The same method produces _____ feelings, and putting that in one sentence is the whole of the comparison.

The unseen toolkit

With no context to fall back on, everything here rests on naming methods precisely. Five terms will carry almost any unseen pair:

Which is a real comparison?

Two OTHER unseen poems are both about a city at night. Which sentence is a genuine COMPARISON, rather than two summaries side by side?

• Both poets use lit windows to stand for company, but in one they comfort the speaker while in the other they are a reminder of everyone they will never know
• The first poem is about a city at night. The second poem is also about a city at night
• The first poem has four stanzas and a regular rhyme scheme
• Both poems use full stops and capital letters

Rank the comparisons

Four comparison points about the two storm poems. Put them in order from WEAKEST to STRONGEST.

• A: "Poem X is happy about the storm. Poem Y is scared of it."
• B: "Both poems personify the storm to show how the speaker feels about it."
• C: "Both poets personify the storm, but Poem X welcomes it while Poem Y fears it."
• D: "Both poets personify the storm, but where Poem X's speaker throws the door 'wide' to drink the air, Poem Y's house 'holds its breath' against a wind that 'fingers every latch': the same method turned to opposite feelings."

The pattern

Every strong comparison sentence has the same four parts, in the same order: Both poets *[shared method]*, but where poem one *[quotation and effect]*, poem two *[quotation and effect]*. On the city poems that becomes: Both poets use lit windows to stand for company, but where the first speaker reads them as "a hundred kitchens still awake", the second counts them as strangers and feels further away for it. Notice the economy. One sentence names a shared method, evidences both poems, and delivers the difference in effect. Two or three of those, on eight marks, is a full answer with time to spare.

Write the comparison

Exam practice. In about 60 words, write ONE comparison point about how the two STORM poems present the storm. Follow the shape:

• name a method BOTH poems use, linked with a connective (both)
• a short quotation or detail from EACH poem
• how the effect DIFFERS between them (whereas / while)

Comparison cracked

The unseen comparison is worth _____ marks and needs no _____ at all, which is what makes it different from every other question on the paper. Find a method the two poems _____ first, then show how its effect differs between them, and bring both poems into every point with a _____ such as "both" or "whereas".